Influence of Parents Socio-economic Status on Learning

INFLUENCE OF PARENT SOCIO- ECONOMIC STATUS ON THE STUDENTS LEARNING ATTITUDE. A CASE STUDY OF IFO LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF OGUN STATE.

BY

OMOTOSO BAMIDELE OMOLAYO

MATRIC NUMBER: DPT29214005

TAI SOLARIN COLLEGE OF EDUCATION OMU- IJEBU, IJEBU  –ODE OGUN STATE

JUNE 2012

TABLE OF CONTENT 1. BACKGROUND OF STUDY--------------------------------------------------- PAGE 3-4 2. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM-------------------------------------------- PAGE 4 3. PURPOSE OF THE STUDY---------------------------------------------------- PAGE 4 4. RESEARCH QUESTIONS------------------------------------------------------ PAGE 4-5 5. RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS----------------------------------------------------- PAGE 5 6. DEFINITION OF TERMS ------------------------------------------------------PAGE 5 7. LITERATURE REVIEW-------------------------------------------------------- -PAGE 6-7 8. HOME EVIRONMENT AND STUDENT------------------------------------ PAGE 7- 8 9. ATTITUDE ----------------------------------------------------------------------- PAGE 8 10. PARENTAL INVOVLEMENT -------------------------------------------------PAGE 9-10 11.RESEARCH DESIGN ----------------------------------------------------------- PAGE 11 12. REFERENCE---------------------------------------------------------------------- PAGE 11 13. QUESTIONAIRE--------------------------------------------------------------- PAGE 12

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CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION 1.0 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY The family has many functions in societies. It serves as an economic unit. It assumes responsibility for a small number of people as they move through life. Its most widely recognized function is the care and socialization of new generation. Parents are usually considered the primary agents of socialization because their influence begins so early in life. Although the family is supposed to care for, socialize and optimize the potential of children, it sometimes falls short of these goals. Children may be neglected. It has been generally observed that people are not equal in terms of status and achievements. The existence of many strata in the society is thought to be natural. Researchers believe that socio-economics status of the students’ parents has a great influence on their attitude towards objects and phenomena. Okon (2006) emphasized that socio-economics status of  a person affect his or her attitude and life chances. These attitudes include: positive or negative attitude towards academic, food, dressing, dru g use and abuse and the group the individual belongs. In the same vein, Aluede and Maliki (1998) emphasized the socio-economics status of parents as a major determinant of the attitude of students towards anti-social behaviors. They further stated that students of low socio-economic families lack basic necessities of life and are both economically weak and socially depressed. Such students develop certain negative psychological feeling which often lead to frustration and could culminate in the manifestation of anti-social behaviours such as cultism. T hese students most often depend on psycho-active drugs and groups to carry out these antisocial behaviours. These anti-social behaviours are often e mployed to make up for their inadequacies of not being able to accept their poverty and low social status in the mist of their peers. Kallaghan (1972) observed that there is a positive correlation between socio-economic status of parents and students attitudes and 3

behaviour manifestations. He opined that the relationship between the two variables may be the economic advantage of the parents, which enables them to give their children the materials money can buy. A child from a high socioeconomic background is enriched with necessities of life, receives stimulating experiences that translates into a healthy attitude towards life generally.

1.1 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM Vast majority of parents are finding it more and more difficult to make a living, especially in developing and underdeveloped countries; scarcity of food especially due to its diversion to the production chemicals, drugs and ornaments present enough reason to be distracted from the expected monitoring in various aspects of children’s life. The challenges of single parenthood, family crises and the ever increasing involvement of women in various areas of community and national development makes one to ask questions as to whether parents are still able to be committed to their wards; or whether they are putting e nough efforts towards effective learning among children. This research work therefore seeks to find out the e xtent to which parents have been able to objectively use their position to enhance academic progress in their children.

1.2 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY If parental influence becomes exerted on pupils through inheritance and communication and by providing right and stimulating environment, the main focus of this research is therefore to find out if there is home/social class advantage. In other words, this study was geared towards finding out if positive attitude as well as academic progress of students from parents with high involvement will be better than their counterparts from parents with low involvement. The researcher also seeks information as to whether there will be any relationship between attitude to and learning attitude.

1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS Four research questions were raised to pilot the study. These are: 1. What will be the mean attitude of the students in relation to the time spent on the domestic affairs by the students at home compared to the time spent on their learning process at school? 4

2. Can your parents afford the payment of teachers for extra lesson/ home lesson at home after the school hour? 3. Do you have enough time at home to reading and attend to your school assignments? 4. Does your parent educational level influence your performance in school?

1.4 RESEARCH HYPOTHESES The following hypotheses were raised to guide the study. 1. There will be no significance difference in the attitude score of respondents with respect to the level of their parental involvement. 2. There will be no significance difference in the performance of respondents in learning with respect to the level of their parental involvement. 3. There will be no significant relationship between the attitudes and academic performance of respondents-learning attitude.

1.5 DEFINITION OF TERMS 1. SOCIO –ECONOMIC STATUS: it can be defined as a level made up of individuals

who deem themselves equal due to similarities in family background, level of  education, occupation, race and attitude towards social issues 2. STATUS: The position of an individual 3. LEARNING: it can be defined as permanent change in the behavior of a learner

after an experience. 4. ATTITUDE: is a concept, which arises from the attempt to account for the

observed regularities in the behavior of individual persons, the quality of which is  judged from the observed evaluative responses one tends to make. An individual can show positive or negative attitude towards a particular object, subject or idea

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CHARPTER TWO 2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW Socio-economic status refer to the social and economic position occupied by parents in the society, Ivor (1978) defined it as a level made up of individuals who deem themselves equal due to similarities in family background, level of  education, occupation, race and attitude towards social issues. Adebayo (1981) observed that the social status of individuals is a reflection of their economic status and he went further to explain that socio-economic status is usually a measure of the income and occupation of the individual, irrespective of his or her educational or social standing. According to him this has a tremendous influence on students’ behaviour. Caldwell (1990) posited that in the past societal norms and values pervaded the society through socialization of the young ones and even adults in the family, schools and religious institutions. He noted that norms and values relating to honesty, honour, integrity and diligence were the focus of  socialization. However, he pointed out that when modernization came individualization and self-assertiveness accompanied it. These features of  modernization negatively affected traditional society norms with regards to human behaviour. To this end, majority of people want to get rich q uickly regardless of the means of wealth and the adverse effect on their children. This therefore encourages their children to encourage their children to engage in antisocial behaviour such as cultism. Ezewu (1987) posited that socio-economic status can affect the academic performance of students in terms of early attendance at school, attendance of best schools and the provision of necessary materials. The students from low socioeconomic status would find it difficult to obtain his needs from his parents. So he or she may be lured into cultism in order to meet his needs. Giddens (1996) in a longitudinal study of the influence of socio-economic status of parents on children’s behaviour found out that children with behavioural problems come from families with low socio-economic background.

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Also Chauhan (2002) posited that, there is a positive correlation between poverty and crime involving very high earnings and very low risks. He observed that the highest percentage of criminals come from low socio-economic background. Furthermore, he observed that all persons who come from under-privilege class are criminals. The crucial factor in poor homes is that parents cannot fulfill the legitimate needs of their children. This financial incapability makes students vulnerable to the deceit of cultism, who deceives them that they will empower them and meet their needs only to end up being a cultist. On his part, Ekpo (2000) view socio-economic status as a complex phenomenon which exerts pervasive influence on all aspect of one’s life. He noted that socio-economic status is a liability that renders students vulnerable to the mischievous antics of cultists in order to make ends meet. Ukpong (1999) observed that socio-economic status has some sociological implication on the society. She e xplained that crime rates like cultism, gangsters, rape, street life such as hawking, prostitution and drug addiction are seriously on the increase because of poverty. Similarly, Essien (2003) in his study on socioeconomic status and social adjustment discovered that out of the 200 students that constituted his sample only 110 representing 55 p er cent were well socially adjusted to school programmes. The remaining 90 representing 45 per cent were not properly socially adjusted. The reason being that rich parents provide their children with conducive house environment, good food and other psychological needs that help them to adjust socially while the students from low socio-economic status tend not to adjust socially probably because of their homes are unstable, their means of livelihood are hardly available and as such they become withdrawn.

2.1 HOME ENVIRONMENT AND STUDENT Home influence can be identified as very important variable that have potential for promoting directly or indirectly student academic achievements (Fehrmann et al., 1987; Blooms, 1984). The term parental involvement has been given different meanings. It has been used to mean parental expectation of school performances, (Hess et al., 1984; Seginer, 1983); deliberate effort by the home to reinforce improved academic performance (Fehrmann et al., 1987; Fontana, 1981; Karraker, 1972); general academic guidance and support (Blooms, 1984); students perceptions of the degree to which their parents influence their plan for high school and monitor their daily activities and school progress (Oguntelure, 1987; 7

Keith and Page, 1985a), parental influence as determinant of attitude towards learning, (Oguntelure, 1987), contribution to children’s activities (home work, encouraging children to read), and promoting school and school based activities (attending parent teachers’ association meetings, parent teachers conference and participating in fund raising activities (Olatoye and Ogunkola, 2008).

2.2 Attitude Attitude is a concept, which arises from the attempt to account for the observed regularities in the behavior of individual persons, the quality of which is judged from the observed evaluative responses one tends to make. An individual can show positive or negative attitude towards a particular object, subject or idea. Kind et al. (2007) viewed attitude as having different components which includes cognitive (knowledge, beliefs and ideas); affective (feeling, like, dislike,) and behavioural (tendency towards an action). The attitude that one has towards an object makes one to make judgment as to whether the object is good or bad m harmful or beneficial, pleasant or unpleasant important or unimportant, Crano and Prislin (2006). Epstein (1995) identified six areas of parental involvement in their children’s academic activities. These are parenting, communicating, volunteering, learning at home, and decision- making and collaborating with the school. According to him, if they are actively involved in all these area, no doubt it will stimulate in school and influence academic achievements. Due to the great influence of attitude on educational pursuits, it is worthwhile to identify the determinants of attitude towards a particular object, subject or idea, the chief of  which are hereditary factors, body, state, direct experience and communication. Hereditary factors (that is, inheritance from parents) form the basis of all human activities including developing of attitude as well as learning. Sometimes unconsciously parents and guidance through non-verbal communications transfer their fear, likes and dislikes to children via bodily movements and facial expression.

2.3 Parental Involvement Children who are academically successful hold positive attitude school and are well adjusted emotionally and socially (Jeynes, 2005). The academic success is due to the children’s innate abilities and reflects the advantage of being in the socio economic level (Machen, Wilson and Notar 2005). Children who are economically advantaged receive enough stimulation at home thereby enhancing their academic achievement (Dearing et al., 2006; McWayne et al., 2004b). Parents’ high aspiration does have additional benefit over and above the advantages 8

children enjoy from being capable and receiving adequate stimulation and resources. One study found that higher level of parental aspiration lowered the likelihood of academic failure during primary school by 48% compared with equally poor but low aspiring parents (Machen et al., 2005; Stelios et al., 2 007; Zhaoand Akiba, 2009). Puph and De’Ath (1989) identified five dimension of  parental involvement, these are: (i) Non-participation - Parents are not involved in their children’s learning. These active non-participant parents are may have decided not to be involved. T hey may either be satisfied with what the school is offering, or are too busy at work, or wants time away from their children. Some of the parents passive simply because they lack confidence or may be unhappy with the form of partnership the school offer. (ii) Support - This dimension of parental involvement occurs only when parents are invited to attend events, e.g. parent/teachers’ meeting, contributing to developing school policies, or by providing money for learning resources. This is a form of direct involvement. (iii) Participation - Parents may wish to participate as helpers providing assistance on outings, running a toy library, supporting children’s learning in the setting and providing indirect support at home that is, keeping informed about what happens toothier children at school, monitoring their academic progress, reading to them and providing intellectually stimulating activities for them at home and within the community. (iv) Partnership - This dimension of parental involvement is a wide scope comes inform of partnership with practitioners. As a result of equal access to information and records some parents may share in the diagnosis and assessment of their children, or involve in the selection of  practitioners, or become parishioners. (V) Control - In this case, parents determines and implements decisions. Direct experience by learners is one of the most important determinants of  attitude. Parents/guardians need to influence their children by increasing familiarity in the learning attitude , taking interest in their school work, enroll them for extra lessons, ensuring that home work is done, acquire film and other electronic material that can stimulate their interest- learning attitude based careers and enable the children to develop friendly attitude towards the learning attitude . These experiences are effective in removing hostility towards schoolwork. The effectiveness with which parents are able to motivate their

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children to learning attitude by way of enhancing their home an d school learning environments is a function of their socioeconomic status.

CHAPTER THREE 3.0 RESEARCH DESIGN: The research is designed to examine the influence of socio- economic status of  the parents on the students learning attitude.

3.1 POPULATION: The research will be limited to Ifo Local Government Area of Ogun State and two schools will be considered namely i. Ajuwon Junior Secondary School, Ajuwon, Ogun State. ii. Oke- Aro High School , Oke -Aro, Ogun State

3.2 SAMPLE AND SAMPLING TECHNIQUE Forty students (40) will be randomly selected from two secondary schools in Ifo Local Government Area of Ogun State, Nigeria; among the Junior Secondary School Class.

3.4 INSTRUMENTS/ADMINISTRATION An attitude questionnaire designed will be used and In exploring this attitudinal construct, items will be drawn relating to concepts which are important components of the attitudinal measures will be consider in this research. They are Likert scale item type questions, in which respondents choose from 5 point scores such as strongly agree (SA), agree (A), undecided (U), disagree (D), strongly disagree (SD). (i). Interest or enjoyment of learning. (ii). Perception of learning. (iii). Perception of value of subjects (that is, usefulness). (iv). Assessment and performance (that is, ability). (v). Attitude towards teachers teaching the subject. (vi). Attitude towards content of the subject. (vii). Outside pressure (that is, home influence). (viii) Attitude towards self (that is, positive or negative relation to subject) (ix). Fear and anxiety. The questions which will be responded to under home influence are related to: 10

(i) Extra lesson/home work. (ii) Occupational/status of parents. (iii) Educational level of parents. (iv) Possession in the home. (v) Leisure. (vi) Time spent on domestic and commercial affairs. The total number of items in the questionnaire will be five and they all measured the same construct. Thirdly, information concerning the individual performance (in percentages) of  respondents was obtained from their continuous assessment records of the school subjects such as English Language and Mathematics. Copies of the questionnaire were administered to the respondents by the researcher and will be collected from them immediately after completion and will be analysed using simple percentage.

VARIABLES DEPENDENT VARIABLE: Is the standardize test administered by the school using the CA in Maths and English Language.

INDEPENDENT VARIABLE: These include the student past academic status, student incident of deviant behavior and academic honors.

REFERENCES ADEA (2004). The Quest for Quality: Learning from African Experience. Proceedings of the IDEA Biennial Meeting. Grand Baie Mauritius. ADEA (2006). Education in Africa: Effective schools for sub-Sahara Africa. Proceedings of the IDEA Biennial Meeting. Aghanta JA (1982). Why there are not enough science applicants for university admission in Nigeria. The J. Sci. Teachers’ Assoc. Nig, Ilorin 2: 90-99. Blooms BS (1984). The search for the method of group instruction as effective as one to one tutoring. Educ. Leadersh. 41 (8): 4-17. Jeynes WH (2005). A meta analysis of the relationship of parental involvement to urban elementary school student achievement. Urban Educ. 40(3): 237-269. Crano WD, Prislin R (2006). Attitudes and persuasion Annu. Rev. Psychol. 57: 345 374 11

TAI SOLARIN COLLEGE OF EDUCATION, OKE  –ARO ANNEX School Name: _______________________________________________________ Age Group: 14- 15

, 16 -17

, 18- 19

Sex: Male or Female.

QUESTIONAIRE

Kindly tick the correct response to the followings questions in the box namely Agree, Strong Agree, Disagree , Strongly Disagree and undecided. QUESTIONS

RESPONSE AGREE

STRONGLY AGREE

1. Do you spent more time doing house hold works than the time spent on learning process at school? 2. Can your parents afford the payment of teachers for extra lesson/ home lesson at home after the school hour? 3. Do you have enough time at home to reading and attend to your school assignments? 4. Does your parent educational level influence your performance in school? 5. Do you parents assist you in solving school related problems in school?

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DISAGREE

STRONGLY DISAGREE

UNDECIDED